Boris Johnson tried to rally disheartened Conservatives on Tuesday, urging the party to believe in Britain and “let that lion roar”.
But the foreign secretary’s speech wasn’t enough to enliven the downcast atmosphere at the Tories’ annual conference in Manchester, nor dispel the tensions that he has recently done more than anybody in the party to aggravate.
After several noisy interventions on Brexit that publicly undermined Theresa May’s already feeble authority and reignited speculation about a leadership challenge, Johnson turned out to be more paper tiger than roaring lion, pledging loyalty to the prime minister.
For all the talk about positioning for a run at May’s job, Johnson “doesn’t have the balls” to make a move against her, a former senior adviser in 10 Downing Street said.
“Theresa May won,” Johnson told delegates at the Manchester centre, referring to the disastrous general election she called that threw away the Tories’ parliamentary majority and handed control of the national political agenda to Jeremy Corbyn.
“She won more votes than any party leader and took this party to its highest share of the vote in any election in the last 25 years,” Johnson said, “and the whole country owes her a debt for her steadfastness in taking Britain forward as she will to a great Brexit deal.”
Every member of cabinet is united behind May, Johnson insisted.
Most of the cabinet weren't actually present to hear the foreign secretary's speech, one minister said. But one of Johnson's cabinet colleagues gave a diplomatic assessment of the speech afterward, saying: “It reminded the party that we did actually win the election. I think people needed to hear that.”
Johnson’s address drew easily the biggest crowd of the conference so far. Ruth Davidson and Jacob Rees-Mogg have both attracted attention since the event began on Sunday, but Johnson remains by far the Tories’ biggest star, despite being tarnished by the EU referendum campaign and last year’s aborted leadership bid.
For two days the main auditorium has been half-empty, even for speeches by cabinet ministers. But long queues formed for Johnson, and the hundreds of delegates who couldn’t get into the packed hall crowded around big TV screens outside to watch his speech. Photographers thronged the stage.
There were laughs as Johnson made a joke at George Osborne’s expense, and applause when he called for a bold and optimistic Brexit — the referendum result isn’t a “plague of boils or a murrain on our cattle”, he said. And when he finished there was a standing ovation, although Johnson left the stage quickly rather than pausing to soak it up.
“Seems to have warmed everyone up,” one Tory MP said. “Let the lion roar!” But despite Johnson’s entreaties to the faithful to cast off the “gloom and dubitation” about Britain’s prospects, his speech, like those of his colleagues, was encumbered by anxiety about the rise of Corbyn’s Labour. And his brio won’t be enough to placate colleagues who are furious about recent antics.
"Didn't bother to wait for it," said a senior Tory MP, when asked to comment on Johnson's speech.
Johnson holds an extraordinary, confounding position in the party right now: isolated in cabinet, lacking support in the Commons, but still too powerful and well-known to be sacked when he acts out.
BuzzFeed News spoke to several well-connected sources on Tuesday who believe Johnson hasn’t been trying to remove May by making public statements that appeared to undermine her position on Brexit.
“I don’t think he has some great plan right now. He’s not on manoeuvres,” says one person who has spent time with the foreign secretary this week. “I’ve seen no evidence that he’s plotting for leadership.”
Rather, the source said, Johnson has been speaking out because he was frustrated about being sidelined on Brexit during the summer, that pundits were saying he seemed to have lost his mojo, and that many people still hold last year’s divisive referendum campaign against him.
Johnson hasn’t been doing the sort of serious legwork required for a leadership bid and gathering support among MPs, the source adds. “There’s not a Boris camp. He doesn’t have that many friends.”
The source said it was May's fault for letting Johnson dominate the headlines. Downing Street's policy announcements have been so threadbare that newspapers have had little else to write about but the leadership speculation.
A former senior 10 Downing Street adviser, who is still well-connected at the highest levels of the government, attributed Johnson’s interventions partly to his burning desire to be at the centre of attention. “He’s totally vain,” the insider says. "But he’s also trying to put down a marker on Brexit."
Privately, some prominent Eurosceptics are concerned about the way the negotiations are going, the insider says. They have the numbers to remove May but have decided to leave her in place until the negotiations are finished rather than see their own personal ambitions for higher office tarnished by a messy Brexit. “Boris is in that bracket,” the former adviser says.
In the meantime, the adviser says, May is too weak to sack Johnson. He is not the popular figure he was a few years ago, but is still so prominent that removing him would trigger a “political earthquake” that May would not survive, the insider says.
“He’s in a strange position now where he’s powerful enough to bring down Theresa May but not powerful enough to replace her,” the source adds.